Listening In: Wicked Peoples

It is funny how when children ask questions about Bible stories sometimes you see them in a different light than you did before.

Today Allyssa and I were talking about the flood. She was "reading" a book about it and telling the story in her own words. She got to a certain point and stopped to talk to me about "wickwid peoples." It took me a while to figure out that the people weren't liquid, but once we were on the same page, here is how the conversation went.

A: God washed the wicked people away.
Me: That's right.
A: They were wicked.
Me: That's right.
A: What did they do?
Me: They didn't obey God. They didn't do what He told them to do. They made bad choices.
A: Was God disappointed?
Me: He sure was.
A: Why?
Me: He told them what was right, but they didn't do it.
A: They did what they wanted not what God wanted. They didn't make good choices. They made bad choices.

About then, I was seeing myself in the wicked people. How many times have I made bad choices when God has told me what is right? Too many to count. Usually when I think about the story, I don't think about how I am like the wicked people. I think about how the world might possibly be as bad or maybe even worse. I think about how incredible it is that God provided for the animals and Noah's family for so many days (more than 40 because they had to wait for the water to recess as well). I wonder about what they did in the ark and if they were scared or if God gave them peace. I never think about myself as being one of the ones who drown.

Me: That's right, they made bad choices.
A: But we don't make bad choices. We do what God says.
Me: We try to. When we make bad choices we can ask Jesus to forgive us.
A: Now we get to go to Heaven.

I think that that last part was more for me than for her. I was needing some Gospel about then. It is amazing how little eyes can help us see things in a new perspective.